Tuesday, July 7, 2009

July arrives, and with it a new strategy

Now that my research year has begun, it is time to start thinking about beefing up the miles in preparation for the fall/winter/spring marathon of races. I've been limiting my reports about daily and weekly mile totals since it has pretty much just been 2 miles a day, every day, before looooooong days at work. For the last week or so, I have been increasing the daily mileage to 3 or 4, and it is feeling pretty good.

Went to the beach for the 4th Holiday, and ran 3 miles on the sand. Pretty good workout for the quads and hams and thankfully no significant strain on the knee (although the right was a little sore last night). It was hard to figure what to do since the temperature was in the 90's with 90% humidity even early in the AM. I had to run then for fear of collapsing in the heat, but the low tide in the morning was not very low and it left me little room to run on the packed sand without running directly through the water. And, while the opening sequence to "Chariots" was inspiring, I did not have Vangelis playing my own personal soundtrack, and I did not feel like running in soaking wet shoes and adding risk of blisters to my concerns about twisting an ankle.

Thanks to Steve for a couple more great scientific references about distance running in Phedip 194 "Athletic Arthritic?". Some day I'll have enough to do an entire lecture on the myths and realities of distance running.